The Chronicles of Xixi

busy

2009-10-01T16:22:00.001+08:00

yes yes i've been so busy that i have not updated my blog for a long time, i know.
my whole october's weekends are packed full and my weekdays are no different either.
i should get something up by 5th october when at least one of my assignments are done up tho.

until then.. keep gritting my teeth i guess!

The inevitable topic... Boomz!

2009-09-16T01:46:00.001+08:00

Yes everyone is talking about this topic. It’s so hot that even I cannot help not talking about it.

What is it? Miss Ris Low – Miss Singapore World 2009 contestant

First off, I would like to begin by asking how can someone like that win the local qualifying competition? Although I must applaud the effort that she puts into the competition, I highly doubt the taste and competency of the judges, or rather the lack of taste and competency.

As with all Miss World/Miss Universe pageants, it is not just about looks; which I again would give our representative, Miss Ris Low, full marks for effort. But really, are the judges blind or are those who signed up this year really that bad? I’m not critiquing on her looks although I must say that not many Singaporean girls look that great comparatively to other native Asians. I’ve met a few gorgeous ones, yes, but still they’re like one in a million.

Next comes the point which grinds my gears. She seems to have a slight difficulty in her proficiency of the English language. Have you heard her speak? Yes she does not spew horrible broken English and her sentences are quite grammatically correct. But it’s the thick Singaporean AhLian/Cheena accent that irks me. No I’m not asking for the Queen’s English, British or American accents, but what would have been ideal was if she did not have that Cheena accent. Its just embarrassing, I for one, am not proud that we Singaporeans speak like that. Well, if it is used in a local context it is fine, but Miss Ris Low is going up to the international stage. Perhaps the rest of the world may not be so particular and fussy about that small accent thing because every country has their own accent. But if we cannot be proud of the things which we ‘produce’, then the competition has already been lost before it started, hasn’t it?

Now comes the point that a few people have mentioned about. They say that it is “normal for Singaporeans to speak like this”, and ask why is the internet community complaining and why the populace seems to be expecting so much. Honestly, not many Singaporeans speak like that, not anymore. Perhaps in the past, such a phenomenon was more common when the branches of education are just reaching out to the populace, but definitely not today. Therefore, for those people who say that it is “normal” for Singaporeans to speak like this, I urge them to attend the ‘Speak Good English’ campaign. This campaign is not only to educate one to speak proper English at the right times, without the fusion of Singlish, but it is also designed to help one know when is the right time to use the Singaporean accent. While it would be almost impossible to remove all hint of a native accent from one’s speech, it is possible to learn and know when to say it in the right way.
Besides, just because a large number of people are doing it, it does not make it ‘right’ or ‘normal’. Ever heard of the phenomenon of de-individualization? Where a person does something that a large majority is doing, he thinks that he is right by behaving similarly. I’m not saying Ris is ‘wrong’ for speaking like that, its her natural way and there is no justification in faulting her. However, the fault lies with the judges for selecting her out of the other contestants. Then again, maybe the other contestants were really that bad that Ris was the best choice out of them.

By the way, I would also like to emphasize that a beauty contest of this scale does not only look at the external looks of the contestant, but she will also be asked questions. If people think that a beauty pageant such as Miss Universe is only about the looks and does not require brains or verbal skills, why would the judges bother asking questions or have the contestants introduce themselves anyway?

I believe Ris also needs some media training.
“Wear something rat and lau’d” – Pronunciation needs fixing.

“Feeling naughty, wear a bigini and jeans and trot down Orchard Road” – Pronounciation needs fixing. And obviously she does not know what that this line just made her totally bimbotic. Obviously she does not know that she can be arrested for indecent exposure, and in Singapore, a bikini as a top and going down Orchard Road is really pushing the limit.

“Zebra prints” and “Leopard prince (prints)” – Fashion disaster much? Even Boy George looked better.

“Boomz!” – What’s with this? Perhaps it wouldn’t sound half as bad/kiddish/AhLian-ish if she didn’t have the ‘Z’ sound at the end. Obviously we know she is trying to describe herself wearing something loud and eye catching.. But “Boomz!”, wow, appalling. I guess she must be the kind who types on MSN and SMS messages with words like “lolx” “omgx” “pls lehz” “dearz”. I shudder. Keep it to your own personal text among friends. On the international community, proper language proficiency is always a plus, please.

This incident made me recall a ‘theory’ about models which my friend came up with during our free time in reservist. He mentioned that models in Singapore are ‘second tier’. The first tier, being the really gorgeous looking and super rare ones, know that with their looks they can get better prospects than being a model. Hence when they are scout by these modeling scouts, they reject them. Next comes tier two, those who think that they look good but are not sure of it themselves. When the modeling scouts, who got rejected by the Tier Ones, they scout out the Tier Twos whom because of being scouted, receive a ‘confirmation’ that they look good. Hence why our models are substandard, Tier Two ones.

Of course, with that I must add that there are always exceptions and I personally know a few models who are Tier One caliber.

coonmake making. moonmake caking. mooncake making.

2009-09-14T13:42:00.000+08:00

Today, I learnt how to make mooncakes from my mum. Not much to say, although it was a very interesting process. Below are the pictures, with some descriptions as usual:

Roasted melon seeds

Salted duck yolks

Balls of lotus paste, mixed with the melon seeds

a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/2WoFBjc1pJBZFwbocdTdxQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCISh6dPr_7iXAQ&feat=embedwebsite">
Lye water (alkaline water; not battery water fyi), peanut oil and sugar syrup

The three liquids mixed with Hong Kong flour to create the mooncake pastry

The mooncake pastry

Wrap the pastry around the lotus paste, mould them and throw them into the oven

Egg-wash the mooncakes, then bake again!

Second round of egg-washed mooncakes. Egg wash again, and bake again!

The end product.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival everyone!
Sip your Chinese tea, look at the moon, carry lanterns and walk around!

Atas bus and non-atas bus.

2009-09-07T20:53:00.000+08:00

Today’s topic may seem a little weird, but it’s something that I’ve been meaning to talk about for awhile already. Atas bus and non-atas bus.

For those of you that don’t know the meaning of ‘atas’, its Malay (if I’m not wrong) for ‘high class’ or if you want to put it in a more refined manner; ‘burgeois’ (pronounced as Bur-Zhoo-Wha).

So ok, back to todays topic, Atas bus and non atas bus, now that you know the definition. I live at Serangoon North as most of you know. I love this place, it is very convenient. I have two bus stops within 2 minutes walk and 2 mrt stations (AMK on North South Line and Serangoon on North East Line) within 15minutes (max) traveling time by bus to take me to anywhere I want to go. I usually take the NEL though. So to get to Serangoon MRT station, I have two choices of buses, services 43 and 70.

I prefer to commute on service 70 instead of 43 though. Here is where the atas part comes in.

On many occasions in the past, I have boarded service 43. It is just a strange unexplainable phenomenon (but I have my own explanation for it actually) that when I board service 43, the people onboard seem weirder. I’m serious! In comparison to service 70 where the people look well.. normal.. I have observed that there are weird people on 43.

Now what do I mean by weird? I have noticed that the people who commute on bus 43 usually fulfill one or more of the following criteria:

When you board the bus, they look at you as if you’re some alien, or you have a piece of steak stuck to your forehead. They just eyeball you from top to toe.

They look lost. I mean lost in their lives. They don’t know what they are doing, don’t know where they are going, have no purpose, or just look plain clueless/lost/directionless/purposeless. Imagine zombie apocalypse. Where’s Jill Valentine or Ada Wong?

They stink. Yes, they seem to not like to shower.

They are retarded. Ok I don’t mean to sound evil and discriminate these people, but how on earth can their next of kin let someone who needs a guardian beside them travel alone? What if something happens to them? These people board the bus looking normal, or maybe some of them you can tell they are a little weird. They sit down quietly until some trigger event suddenly sparks off their madness and they start yelling. Just the other day when I was returning home from lesson with my friend Kelvin, we boarded this bus service 147. A retarded guy sneezed really loudly, so naturally it would kind of get the attention of people around him. He started yelling at everyone on the bus and only stopped when the bus driver threatened to call the police if he did not.

They are retarded. Now this is where the real retarded people come in – They are retarded because they board the bus and they stand at the rear exiting door, blocking everybody when there is enough space at the standing area.

The music play-aloud’ers. – These people are what? Too poor to afford earphones? You know at opticians they ask you to donate your old glasses to the poor and the needy who cannot afford visual aid right? I think there should be a box to collect used earphones to donate to these people. And amazingly, these people come from ALL demographics. I’ve seen before your typical secondary school kid playing his hiphop or jay chou out loud. Its easy to spot; you see them boarding the bus with in their school uniforms, shirt tucked out, planting (I wouldn’t say wearing) a trucker cap barely on their heads with so much air space inside without knowing they look stupid. Some 50 year old uncle who plays his Teresa Teng. And some weirdo ahbeng with gold centre parting hair looking like the McDonalds logo still listening to techno and playing it out loud. The list goes on, but you can imagine. I’m perfectly fine with having them on the bus, just please, don’t need to share the music. As if the noise pollution from SqueakyMobile (TV Mobile), the louder than burglar alarm EZ-Link card scanner and other background chatter isn’t enough to drive you nuts. Thank god I have my iPod.

The talk a lot/talk aloud – Self explanatory: People who yell into their mobile phones. There are Singaporeans; namely the weirdos (see above), the ex-ahbengs, and the older generation (can’t fault them much because they aren’t as educated as the younger generation so they have a tendency to be more “rough”).

The socially/environmentally oblivious – These people board the bus and if there are no seats, they stand, naturally. But they stand AT THE DOOR. You know what your sergeants said during NS when there was an empty space waiting to be filled up and nobody would move in there; “Got ghost ah?”. These people block the door, slowing down entrance and exits. These people also refuse to move to ALL THE WAY to the rear when the bus is crowded. Obviously they do not understand that if the bus is so crowded and the person at the front door cannot board for the door to close, the bus cannot move off and everyone WILL BE DELAYED.

I’m sure that you can relate much to this article, especially if you take public transport during the peak hours. The same applies on the MRT.

Why I prefer to take service 70. The chance of meeting a weirdo on bus 70 is probably 2 out of 100 trips as compared to bus 43 where its like 78 out of 100.

Here comes my reasoning why I think 43 ferries weird people:
Service 43 starts from Punggol (ulu place) and ends at Upper East Coast Road (ulu place).

Service 70 starts from Yio Chu Kang (affluent place) and ends at Shenton Way (affluent place).

Discriminate much? ^_^
Of course if you were to feel offended by this article (although you shouldn’t be), I apologize for it as it is simply through my own personal observation and has no intention of causing or stirring up any unpleasant feelings in any way. Of course I must also add that there are always exceptional cases where there are no weirdos on 43 and instead there are on 70. Well.. What to do? It’s called PUBLIC transport for a reason. I’m just thankful I’m not clinging onto the outside of a bus like in Mumbai.

The meaning of ‘Meaning’

2009-09-01T22:09:00.000+08:00

That’s what I have to write about for my Screen Theories module essay. Rather, I’m supposed to write about how meaning is constructed and understood by society and people. Here’s how my assignment question reads;

“Meaning in any film is produced as a result of combining the formal elements of cinema (the use of camera, lighting, sound, mise-en-scene, use of narrative technique etc). However, this meaning is also shaped through normative assumptions about gender, race, class, work, the family and so on that exist in our culture. Films merely reaffirm these assumptions rather than contest them”.

Well, I won’t go into detail about society, discourse, Baudrillard, Foucault, discourse, governmentality and stuff like that; it’s too deep for a brainless blog like this already.
I was quite surprised I had to break out my old skool TMC Advanced Diploma textbook for references and quotes on this topic. I thought I’d never have to touch the crummy useless textbook from the school anymore. You never know eh?

“Every step with you” pfft!

A close up view of the notes I highlighted:

Ahh fun times… Thank god for the assignment deadline being pushed to 17th Sept. I don’t know how I’ll juggle this and my crazy PR assignment about pirates when their deadlines are back to back!

Another save money weekend!

2009-08-30T20:54:00.000+08:00

Woohoo!! Another weekend at home, another $100 saved. At this rate, I’m gonna be rich! So anyways, I stayed home and played Everquest2 the whole weekend instead of doing my essays. Well, PR is due on the 11th and Screen Theories got extended to the 17th, so I got some spare time I guess. But I shall not rest on my laurels! Must get to work asap.

Oh by the way, I made some nice foodies these two days too:

Saturday night’s dinner; gigantic salad with cream cheese baked potatoes. The vege got covered by the stuff on top but if you look closely you can see some greens along the edges.

And my second (and better attempt) at making hummus. This time with lime, oregano and a sprinkle of Cajun powder on top (although Cajun powder isn’t in the original recipe, I think it goes quite well with the hummus).

So there you have it! Another uber exciting weekend! Next week, another 2 dishes and another $100 saved! Woohoo!!! I say its time for a beer. To the kopitiam!!!

Slack blogger. Blog slacker.

2009-08-27T11:28:00.000+08:00

Woah its been so long since I last updated. Well, ok, about a week. I was busy doing my assignments and shit and didn’t really feel like opening MS Word to draft something else other than my essays. Anyway I’m back. Like yeah, wow.

Ok… Updates..
Not much actually. Just a few food pictures.. Other than that was quite a boring week I must say. Well, I did pick up two new games… Farmville (on Facebook) and Everquest2.
Ok Everquest2 is not new per se, its like a return to what I used to play.

Here’s some screenshots of these two games:

Farmville – IMMA FARMA !!!!!!

Everquest 2

Yes, as you may have noticed I’m playing as a female character. Why? Honestly, don’t you get bored staring at a man’s ass after prolonged playing? And I’m not the kind who would check out a man’s ass, even though the in-game avatar is supposed to ‘represent’ me and its made up of pixels. I’d still rather stare at pixel female ass.

So anyway, as I mentioned I was busy doing my assignments, but I’ve no forgotten what I’m good at doing either. I’ve been busy in the kitchen as well, although I do admit that this week’s attempts are mostly half assed efforts. Here’s some pics for you to see:

Mashed potatoes with jap curry and baked cod fish

Half assed effort breaded chicken with a pathetic attempt at making BAKED breaded onion rings.

Best effort so far. Mezze platter with a glass of chardonnay. Consists of oven toasted foccacia bread, olives, chick peas, onions, hard boiled eggs and white wine Portobello mushrooms. Oh and not to forget a side dip of olive oil with oregano and slightly overcooked garlic.

Here’s the upclose pics of the platter

All in all this is what I’ve been doing the past week other than hitting the gym. Nothing much interesting really. I need to get a life. But come to think about it, I am intentionally denying myself of ‘a life’ because I’m trying to save money. And yes, to me having ‘a life’ will see me spending. Oh wells.

My wallsocket pin-up motivation

2009-08-16T20:24:00.002+08:00

Almost forgot to talk about this new 'thing' I made for myself:

I made this A4 sized pin up and tacked it to under my wall sockets, just to the right of my monitor.
It reads

"Why you should seriously QUIT BOOZE

Apart from the obvious fact that over-boozing will potentially lead to liver failure. Quitting booze has more benefits than what you may see.
Here's the list:

- It helps you save money - Remember the Audi A4 you want to buy?
- It gives you a leap in your six-pack building. Booze is FAT
- Too much alcohol spoils your complexion, and overall health
- Alcohol disrupts your sleep. YOu don't sleep well and feel terrible the next day; which hinders work productivity.
- You save money on travelling to and from drinking. The cab fee isn't exactly cheap!
- Think of the list of things you want to buy - By saving on the drinks, you can actually buy one of two new items every month. YES! Even with your allowance of $400.

###

So yeah thats my quit booze motivation. I look at it (sometimes in voluntarily, cos its in my arc of view) everyday and hopefully it drills in to my head. I did something similar like that last year too but that was only a month long challenge. I'll see how long I can go this time round :D

My stay home weekend

2009-08-16T19:42:00.001+08:00

Yes finally I’ve managed to pin my ass down at home and stay home on a Saturday. Well, also because I had assignments to complete so yeah I needed the extra time. What more, I saved $130 by not going out. Why $130? I get a weekly allowance of $150 from my dad (which yes, I am ashamed to be still taking from him), minus off the food and drinks and the cab ride home and today’s (Sunday) meal at Burger King..

Well ok, I did go out. Went over to Serangoon Gardens to meet up with my friend Jaron for some coffee. R.K. Eating House was the place, the one where there was supposedly this racist moron who went there and tried to order pork, intentionally and recorded it down. Jaron and I were deliberating if it was actually real, or just a scripted event.

Anyway I do not concern myself with the morons that some people can be. Like Duke Nukem’s infamous quote ‘Let God sort ‘em out!’. I agree.

So yesterday before meeting up with Jaron I had dinner at home. This is what I made:

Salmon coated in biscuit crums. Chicken breast coated in biscuit crumbs. Baked ‘french fries’. Hummus.

Honestly, I felt it was quite ‘weak’ in terms of effort put in. It definitely doesn’t score for how good it looks because it’s more or less the same color shade throughout. Taste-wise; the salmon was quite plain, not salted or seasoned before it was coated with the biscuit crumbs. The chicken was about the only other thing that passed other than the hummus which was my first attempt at making; though as usual I lacked a couple of ingredients to make a proper dish.

So yeah, that was my Saturday.

About 20minutes before drafting out this blog I had another home made dinner. I didn’t feel like having anything too heavy so I made miso soup with tofu. Initially I didn’t want to take a picture of it because I felt that it was too ordinary. But then I saw the miso settle and it looked kind of artistic (somehow) and decided to snap a picture of it and post it on.
Oh by the way I included a snapshot of the hummus I made yesterday too.

Salmon Miso Soup

2009-08-13T16:33:00.000+08:00

Today on the menu:

Salmon Miso Soup

You need:
• Rear end of a salmon fish – the last 1/5 to 1/6 of the entire fish with the tail would suffice. Do not de-bone.
• 1 whole potato
• 1 whole onion
• 1.5 table spoons of miso
• some chopped spring onion

You do:
• Cut the fish into 3 portions or so and throw them into a pot of approx. 1 litre of boiling water. Let the bones cook in the water until the entire pot of water turns chalky. It took me about 45minutes. You can keep tasting the soup base, as long as it does not have any taste of plain-ness in it its good already.
• Remove the bones and other smaller fragments that may have broken off using a strainer. Set aside. You may notice that some salmon meat have come off the bones as well. Leave those in the soup base.
• Cut potato into cubes and onion into slices. Throw them both in and let them boil till the potato is really soft. You can chop up the spring onion in the mean time.
• When the potato has softened up tremendously, put the 1.5 tablespoons of miso into the soup mixture, stir well. Do not let the miso soup boil for more than 10 minutes as over cooking it will make the miso taste sour.
• Throw on the chopped spring onions as garnish and serve.

Feeds: 1 to 2 persons
Disclaimer: Please be careful with the fishbones and the fragments that you might have missed during the initial straining.

Also, I must admit that this is my first try. I was lacking a couple of other miso soup ingredients such as tofu, seaweed and kelp. If I ever get down to getting those I may attempt this again to make it better and more complete.

Enjoy.

Majulah Singapura

2009-08-09T11:11:00.000+08:00

Here we are again. 9th August. So on this day, Singapore gained its independence from Malaysia. I won’t go into an entire history lesson of this country and I’m sure most of you who read this would know most of the story behind what happened back in 1965.

So today’s blog is more about the people who inhabit this island. Singaporeans. I’m not some kind of hardcore ‘Uncle Sam wants you!’ kind of patriot but I must admit that it is through my own personal observation, I noticed that the people here aren’t exactly ‘happy’ that it is National Day. I don’t know why but it seems that a certain group of people seem to portray a tad bit of difficulty acknowledging that its National Day and they go like ‘National Day? So what? Just another public holiday’. Well, most of us would take it that way I guess. But I guess that they didn’t figure that without this day, we could’ve still been under Malaysian rule and life wouldn’t be the same.

I think it’s something to do with the people and the culture. I mean why does this group portray (through their vocal tone and body language) that they do not care about anything. Or perhaps they are ‘shy’ for being recognized as ‘patriotic’ or ‘country loving’, mocked by their friends who go like ‘Eeeyer! You so patriotic one ah?’ Well, I’m not bashing/blaming anybody because I believe that every country would somehow have their fair share of people who do not like the place they were born.

But of course, I’d go on to say that some people here do not know how to appreciate the country for what it is and would be complaining about everything. Little do they acknowledge the fact that many of the things that we have and enjoy now probably come as luxuries to other people in other parts of the world. It’s the people that need some form of re-education to make them know that we are actually very fortunate to be living here where at a twist of the tap, we get clean drinkable water (although I still boil it) and countless other luxuries that come as a ‘default’ to us.

A lot of people here whine and rant about many things. Take for example; freedom of speech. I mean, seriously, if you had the freedom of speech like you did in the United States or some other ‘free’ country, what makes you think that the next discriminatory remark you make won’t have your house being burnt down by someone who decided not to take it lying down? A lot of people rant about not having the freedom of speech or expression, but they fail to see the flip side of things, the consequences. Of course you can argue that not everyone will talk about discriminatory topics, but hey, there definitely will be those one or two idiots who will and that is one or two too many of what we need already. Sadly, Singaporeans still have no sense of responsibility yet. Not especially when it comes to freedom of speech. They don’t even have the habit and responsibility of clearing their own trays at fastfood restaurants and food courts; freedom of speech is galaxies away. To reinforce my stand against some Singaporeans being idiots with freedom of speech and not knowing how to use it, look at the aunty who STOMP’ed about the ‘smelly NS boy’ on the bus and was thankful of how her two daughters don’t have to serve in the army. This is a perfect example of an idiot misusing a channel for free expression; they talk about silly, low-intellectual content topics. And I dare say that this particular aunty is only one of the many lying hidden. Take a look at STOMP and the type of topics posted there and you’ll find a fair share of non-intellectual content. If people really want freedom of speech they should prove that they know how to use it, appropriately. What is the point of giving more formal channels for speaking up when all that the people talk about is garbage?

All in all, it seems I’ve digressed from my original topic, but what I’m trying to bring across here is that the people do not know how to appreciate what the government is doing/trying to do for us, and all they do is just whine and rant like a little school girl. Think about it, if things are really so bad, why are all the big name people trying to move over here? So I say it’s the people here that have a major misconception of things and they need to change, not the government.

Double Filet-O-Fish

2009-08-06T14:31:00.000+08:00

And I’ve digressed from the actual intended topic for today’s blog. My double Filet-O-Fish. I was flipping through the papers this morning as usual after brushing my teeth and waiting for my hot water to boil to make tea. I came across this advertisement from McDonalds which took about 1/6 or 1/7 of the main page of Straits Times. It showed their double Filet-O-Fish. Basically the same filet-o-fish burger, with double patties. Now with wasabi mayonnaise sauce too! WOWZ.

So I took a glance at it and was like “Hmm.. ok…”. Neutral emotions here. No hate nor love for that ad or McDonalds, although I don’t eat there anymore unless I really don’t have a choice.

So I made my own double Filet-O-Fish platter for lunch:

The red fillet is grilled salmon. The white piece is baked cod with orange sauce. Served with potato wedges, a handful of olives and about a third of a whole lettuce, shredded.
As you can see in the final picture, there’s a pile of orangey stuff at the bottom right corner, just next to the potato wedges. That’s a pile of baked orange pulp, originally used to season the cod.

Bad Ad !

2009-08-06T14:30:00.001+08:00

So today’s blog talks about two things. First of which: Evony Online. This web based medieval ages castle/town/city building game where you’re supposed to build up your kingdom and defeat your enemies and rescue your ‘Queen’. But I must say, the web banners which they throw up are a little off the theme of the game.

Come Play, My Lord!
What sort of porn site is this? No I’m not some conservative bastard who insists that women cannot show anything below their collar bones. I mean really, this is poor advertising. People will argue that sex sells, yes, but its as good as selling those Lehman linked bonds. Unethical selling, of which this case, the game.

On the topic of poor advertising, have you all seen the latest bust enhancement boutique advert? This guy, somewhat perverted looking, with bad teeth and a lousy smile, sits on a coach and a couple of women walk past with saggy boobs, or like a grand canyon (width-wise only, no depth) as a cleavage and then his facial expression cringes like he just got an entire pile of shit harden on his head. After these few “not to his liking” women walk past him, this lady with “the perfect boobs” walks past and he checks her out, smiling and nodding to himself.

Like come on, seriously, Bad Advertising Level 99. And I thought the London Choco-Roll jingle and the one where Jamie Yeo was marketing some Aloe Vera juice, bouncing around on screen, shaking the canned drink was bad enough. Seriously, the censorship board should filter out such commercials as it makes the people who watch it feel as though half of their brain just imploded.

Tofu salad

2009-08-03T15:00:00.001+08:00

Here's what I made for lunch.

You need:

• 1/3 whole lettuce
• 2 hard boiled eggs
• handful of chickpeas
• 20 black olives
• 100g of tofu
• 1 small potato
• olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic
• ¼ white onion
• 4 brown mushrooms
• 1 tomato
• 2 tablespoons of miso
• 2 teaspoons of sesame oil

You do:

Throw the eggs, chickpeas and potato into water to boil over medium heat. It should take about 10minutes for the eggs and maybe 20 to 40 for the potatoes and chickpeas.

In the mean time, wash and peel the lettuce, shred it up and leave them in a fridge. Do the same for the tomato, cutting it up into eight slices. Refrigerate also.

Finely chop the garlic. Slice up the mushrooms until you get them in thin slices, coat with a little bit of olive oil and the garlic. You may also wish to throw on some salt and white pepper here to add some flavor to it. Pan fry over low to medium heat till their insides are browned up. Remove from pan and let them cool.

Eggs should be hardboiled by now. Remove and leave to cool before de-shelling them.

Slice up the tofu into 4 quarters. Set them on to a plate and then steam it for approximately 10 to 15minutes. After this is done, leave it aside to cool as well.

Potatoes and chickpeas should be also done by now. Use a fork to test for softness of the potato and taste one or two chickpeas to see if they’ve softened up. Remove and leave to cool.

While the stuff is cooling, make your miso sauce. Mix the 2 tablespoons of miso with about 2 teaspoons of sesame oil on the pan and let it gently heat up over low heat. Carefully add tablespoons of water to dilute it bit by bit yet not making it too watery. Keep stirring as it is being heated to prevent it from burning. Let it simmer for 10minutes and remove from the heat, let it cool.

Toss the cooled offchickpeas and black olives together with the lettuce and tomatoes
Slice up the cooled hardboil eggs and place them nicely on the plate, line the slices in a circle. Scoop up the mushrooms and line them in a circle that’s smaller than the one formed by the eggs. So now you’ve got 2 circles, one outer one formed by egg slices, another inner one formed by mushrooms. Cut up the cooled potato and randomly place them around the salad, leaving space in the middle for the tofu.

Slice the cooled off tofu into cubes and then lay them in the middle of the plate. Drizzle the miso sauce over the tofu and drop the raw onion rings onto the top for decoration.

Serves 1 to 2 persons, depending if you’re a big eater =D

Top it off with a tall glass of OJ with sprigs of mint leaves:

Back to normal…

2009-08-01T12:06:00.000+08:00

Finally, after 4 days of reservist, I am back home. Not much to talk about the in-camp training; nothing interesting, just refresher courses and also because I don’t want to accidentally write up about something which would result in a SWAT team repelling through my window in the middle of the night. =P. Just kidding.

Anyway it was a good opportunity to catch up with my army mates as well as I hardly get the opportunity to meet most of them. The usual crazyness and laughter revolved around us as we waited for our turn to participate in the various training activities. Mind you, I am actually proud to say that we’ve achieved a level of insanity in us whenever we’re together that hardly anyone outside of our circle can understand and would simply say we’re plain insane. But of course, with that comes our high level of bonding too.

We did a bit of observation of the other companies of guys in our unit and came to conclude that they weren’t as strongly bonded as we were. Or maybe they were as well, just that we couldn’t see it. Well, no matter. I can’t imagine if I were part of them instead of part of the current people I am with though. I must say, insanity is good for your mental health as it lets you release steam from the mandatory proper behaviour of daily life.

So here I am, on a Saturday morning drafting up about my past 4 days of reservist in MS Word, albeit not much, as blogger.com has some funny browser error that only lets me view my blog. The top bar with the Sign-In and Create Blog buttons are missing due to some Java problems. Had some problems with Facebook yesterday too. Then again it maybe a Firefox issue as I never faced such problems before upgrading to version 3.5. Oh well…

170+ emails to clear, 120+ coming from school related stuffs. Looks like I’m in for a hell of a fun weekend. Sadly, I had no access to the email or internet the past 4 days as most smart-phones come with cameras nowadays. In case you don’t know, mobile phones with built-in cameras aren’t allowed in military camps, but really, we reservist men aren’t interested in taking pictures of ourselves standing next to tanks, holding machine guns like Rambo etc. We actually need access to those smart phones as they allow us access to our email otherwise time off from work could actually result in it piling up. Although I must admit there have been a couple of idiots who actually take pictures or videos of restricted stuffs. Oh well, I won’t challenge that ruling I guess.

At least I’m back to my supposedly normal 6 meal a day diet. Yes yes; that high fibre, high protein, low carb diet that my mum would easily dismiss as inappropriate (and maybe even unhealthy). I must say, they serve quite a fair bit of carbs in the camp foods. They need to fill those hungry boys up after all that training I guess.

This afternoon; wash my fieldpack, helmet and other stuffs and clear more work. 

Of silly spam SMSes and ION Orchard revisited.

2009-07-27T21:32:00.001+08:00

“Today is the day when SingTel,M1 and Starhub celebrate the mark of Singaporeans sending a total of 60 billion local messages. Forward this msg to 10 person and you will have $49 of outgoing calls free! After so, you may check your phone bill to verify.”

This was the SMS I got from a number of (ahem) morons. I mean really. They actually forward it believing that it is real? You’re kidding me right? Or are they so cheapo that they’d rather look stupid than risk losing out on a freebie? Quoted from one of my friends who happened to receive the same SMS too. Apparently it was quite rampant. A few of my other friends got it too. Kalvert, whom I met up with today got it as well. He simply ignored it, I however was not so kind.

I put up a message of my Facebook status stating “Arnold Goh is going to start publishing the names and numbers of those idiots who send him the "Forward this sms to 10 people and get $49 rebate of your mobile bill" thing.”. To serve as a deterrence to those who’d try to spread this silly SMS to me. Granted, it does not cost me anything to receive SMSes, but the last thing you need is stupidity beamed directly to your communication device. As if penis enlargement spam emails weren’t enough!

So anyway today was a day of achievements. Can I be proud of myself? I won’t gloat though, I promise. Ok here goes.

I passed my Final Theory Test for driving, yes a little late but hey. First try.
Went home after the test, got changed and headed back out to meet Kalvert at ION Orchard. I didn’t manage to get pictures the first time I was there the other day with Tzemian. I did today though. I was triggerhappy with the camera. Get ready for A LOT of pictures.
Eye candy as follows:

The 4 storey water column at the basement of ION Orchard.

First stop for Kalvert and me were to fill our stomachs. Aoba Ramen 3 out of 5 stars.

Fried Tofu

Kalvert’s Shoyu Taro Ramen (I think I got the name right)

My Shoyu Char Shu Ramen

Upwards shot toward the ceiling and lights in the restaurant.

Of course after filling ourselves with grub we had to explore the place thoroughly. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Upwards shot towards the ceiling and the cool lights above.

Something’s gonna jump out around the corner!

More of the cool ceiling lights.

Toilets, this way.

Too posh for a toilet. I could use it as my bedroom or something.

This bottle of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Champagne costs a hefty $3,888. Stands at approximately 90cm tall. Available from Market Place ThreeSixty at ION Orchard. 4th Floor. First time you got a supermarket posh enough to be put on the 4th floor of a mall eh?

Took a break at this posh ice-cream place after all that walking around for some expensive ice-cream. 4 flavours for $7.90. I had cream cheese, lemon, tiramisu and mixed fruits. I was one second too late and they introduced the white wine flavour when I was paying for mine already. Doh! No matter, I will be back! – Gusstimo @ ION Orchard #01-15, next to Hugo Boss boutique.

Chandelier in the café.

Some cool image of ice cream on the wall that I had to take a picture of.

After ION we trudged on over to Tangs via the Orchard underpass to check out some colognes. Not much to talk about there, its Tangs anyway. Parted ways after that, knowing we’ll see each other again tomorrow for reservist. Yucks.

So on the way home I received another spam SMS about the $49 rebate thing. Immediately I replied back to the sender, whose number was not saved in my phone, asking who he/she was. No reply. I figured he/she say my Facebook status and decided not to admit. He’d be like “Oh shit, I better shut up, he’s gonna shame my ass!”.

And just about 20 minutes ago, I managed to put my new toy into use.
Here’s the story about my new blender.
Made 4 litres of watermelon, orange and banana juice. They’re now resting in my fridge. I’d quaff them all if not for the fact that I’d potentially get diarrhea and I had to go for reservist tomorrow! Blah. 4 days of no blogging. This should keep you all occupied for some time.

Do you like hamburgers?

2009-07-26T20:47:00.003+08:00

Took a shot at making hamburgers for dinner while my parents were out. It turned out not bad. Although I have to admit the patty was a little too salty and less cooked on the inside than the outside. It still was cooked though!

I used normal wholemeal bread due to the fact that I did not have any hamburger buns. If you noticed I didn’t have lettuce too. It was quite a spontaneous decision to make hamburgers for dinner as I didn’t plan for it earlier. Hence the lack of proper ingredients.

Here are the pictures:

“Hamburger” with mushrooms, cheese and tomatoes. A handful of black olives by the side.

A better view of the contents of the burger.

Next time I try it again, I’ll be better prepared with the ingredients. Special thanks to Shuping for sharing with me this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/06/30/dining/20090701-burgers-interactive.html

I know which direction I’ll be heading from now when I make burgers in the future 

Tomorrow; ION Orchard with Kalvert aka 小苹果.

Yet another fun Saturday (continued)

2009-07-26T19:36:00.001+08:00

Part two of my Saturday story.
So after heading home to drop off my new toy as you have read and seen below, I took a shower and immediately headed out to Clarke Quay to meet up with my classmates.
Mid-afternoon beer for the win! Happy Hour rates too! I don’t need to say much, the pictures tell the story.

4 Jugs and 4 very happy people.
WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE PICTURES? Yes sadly, due epic lousiness of the Sony Ericsson Xperia camera, no pictures of humanoids could be taken due to poor lighting and other environmental effects which contribution to further... erm... let’s just say... distortion. Therefore none were uploaded.

After the beers, we walked on over to Liang Court’s Meidi-Ya; the renown Japanese supermarket. I bought a piece of tofu, a pack of salmon sushi and 200grams of black olives. Fun-ness. And no, I was thinking straight when I bought them; lest you think I was drunk. Now I’m starting to sound defensive there.

Went home to sleep after. Dreamt of the happy hour which I was at earlier but with more people. There was also a dim-sum buffet at my dream Brewerkz and my other friend Gavin (not related to my bunch of school mates) was also there. I recall he was staring at a plate of Har Gaos (prawn dumplings) and looking as though he was going to throw up. I asked if he was ok and he just waved his hand in a ‘No’ gesture at me. Then I woke, just when the dream was probably getting fun.

Yet another fun Saturday.

2009-07-26T01:50:00.002+08:00

I just can’t get enough of them can I? All Saturdays should be as much fun as today and the previous week.

So as I was heading out, waiting at the bus stop to be picked up by Tzemian, I saw this:

How the hell did the lorry make it onto the center divider of the road is beyond me. I swear some Singaporean drivers drive like they got their license from a lucky draw.

So anyway, off to Philips at Toa Payoh.
I bought a blender. Yes! A blender! With the help of a hook up from Tzemian and his friend who was a Philips staff, I got a 30% discount. Well, actually thanks to Youling for producing her NTUC card that allowed for the discount. But also to TM’s friend for hooking us up. He bought a pair of headphones for his aunt. They didn't have the ones with the Swarovski crystal on the sides anymore though.. We were looking for it at ION Orchard the other day.

Here’s a couple of pictures of my new toy:

The whole blender set.

Suction pads underneath!

Box.

I was surprised the pitcher is actually made of glass. I thought it would be plastic.

Off to the recycling bin, I banish thee!

Looks exactly like what they show on the box! WOWZ!

Why I got a blender was because of the want to make smoothies. Toss in a few fruits, some juices, ice, milk and stuff and I got a whole healthy meal in a pitcher. I thought of getting a BlendTec but hey, I’m not blending iPhones so yeah. Of course I got the concept of introducing smoothies into my diet from Men’s Health Magazine, and hey, you have to agree it does add a bit of variety to your normal solid food diet.

So I rushed home and dropped off my new toy, freshened up and headed back out to Central @ Clarke Quay to meet my classmates for our belated celebration for passing Authorship.

Here’s one definition for authorship:

But I’m not going into a whole 50,000 word essay on what it is, why study it etc. Actually I can answer why I studied it now; because it constitutes to my degree in Communications, it is a core module and I cannot drop it and when I get my degree it will enable me to get a job and earn lots of money and buy lots of blenders.

I’ll continue the later part of the day in the next blog post.

For the love of God...

2009-07-24T08:54:00.002+08:00

(Names in this article are withheld for privacy and protection)

First agenda of the day, visiting my friend at NUH. What happened you ask? Well, with thanks to an utmost uber dieting plan from an unrecognized fitness coach, this has happened. The story dates back to Sunday 19^th July when she was admitted. For what? Low body sodium content. First thing you’d ask, does she take salt? Yes she does. Apparently, the reason that actually caused her to experience this LBSC (low body sodium content) is due to the fact that she has been on this diet recommended by this moron of a fitness coach and so called certified biosignature practitioner.

It all began when she went for this biosignature scan which was supposed to help a person zoom in on his problem areas of weightloss and fitness (i.e due to hormones, diet etc). What this moron (I shall call that fitness coach ‘moron’ from now on) recommended my friend was that she SHOULD CUT OUT CARBOHYDRATES TOTALLY. I mean really? He’s shitting me right? Who the hell in the world cuts out carbohydrates TOTALLY for 2 weeks?! Even body builders cut out carbs for 2 or 3 days in a row only. They still need the energy from carbs to pump iron and for basic sustenance. That was what the moron recommended. On top of that, the amount of salmon omega3 pills she was recommended to consume and god knows what other supplements were of an exaggerating amount. 24 x 1000mg Omega3 tablets per day. That’s 24,000mg.

To top off the non-credibility of this moron, one would expect a biosignature scan to incorporate blood tests, sugar tests, or something that takes a sample of some body fluid. None at all. What my friend described to me was that he merely pinched and measured the fatty areas and deduced what was wrong with her and recommended the diet. She told me he pinched her calf and deduced that she was not sleeping enough; which coincidentally she was, but pinching thighs to tell if one’s not getting enough Zs? That’s even more bullshit that the teochew porridge guy counting like 20 40 60 80 at the dishes you ordered and telling you your meal costed $14. So please, for the love of god and life, if you are reading this and are considering something so drastic to lose weight or get fit, don’t do something so stupid?

Facts of life, you can’t run away from them:

1) You can lose weight by changing your diet around and incorporating food discipline

2) You need to exercise – a bane to most people, but sorry. That’s the sure fire method

3) You CANNOT cut out carbohydrates – you can convert to refined carbs i.e oats and wheats instead of white rice. But you cannot cut out carbohydrates.

Oh and speaking of converting to refined carbs, my friend was told by this moron that she “could not digest starch” – hence leading to the fat build up, hence resulting in her having to cut out carbs. So she has to avoid muesli – moron told her that. What bullshit is this? If a person cannot consume starch or carbohydrates in its most RAW form (i.e muesli is literally oat and wheat grains etc) what else can he/she eat?

The most wuhua saturday I've had in a loooonnggg time.

2009-07-19T15:56:00.002+08:00

Yesterday can be said to be perhaps one of the best Saturdays I've had in a very long time. Why? I had two eye opening experiences and of course, tons of free booze.
Now don't go thinking I am some freeloader who brags about how much free booze his friends offer him; I pay for my alcohol too ok!

So last night I caught up with two of my friends from the army; Wenjun and Roy. It was Roy's company event at this club called DXO, next to Esplanade. So I arrived later than expected at the club, and oh boy, the crowd pouring out from the Marina Barrage was madness. It was the NDP preview just a few minutes before and I was fortunate (pun intended) to be able to travel upstream against the free flow of red teeshirt people totting goodie-bags from the NDP show. Arrival at DXO was not without breaking into a sweat, thank god for air-con and ice cold beer. Yep. Free-flow ice cold Tiger beer, courtesy of Roy's company. Thank you so much for that.

So we were there for the next 3 hours or so drinking beer, watching comedy capers and laughing our hearts out at their vulgar yet meaningful jokes about life and everything silly about it in general. To be honest, it was my first time going to an actual stand-up comedy and hell, it was an eye opener. The crowd there was not huge, just about maybe 50 people sitting around tables scattered around what used to be the dance floor of the old DXO club. Maybe they converted it over just for that night. And mind you, such stand-up comedies come with expensive tickets. $60 per person I heard. And in other countries such as the the US, people pay hundreds to listen to people like Chris Rock and Jeff Dunham talk. I got in for free.

After the show was over, at around 11.30pm, we moved on over to Amara hotel. Got some munchies from a neighbourhood bakery across the road. We went to a Salsa Club. Yes, a Salsa Club. Roy's friend wanted to go over to say hi to a friend before heading over to St James, so since we all didn't have any plans, we tagged along. And yet another eye opening experience. The salsa dancers are very professional. And might I add, some of them even look hotter than 60% of the chicks you find in normal clubs. Albeit it wasn't exactly my kind of place either. We were ushered to the VIP area (cool stuff eh!) where we sat down and just shared a jug of beer. And again, I did not have to pay for it (fucking freeloader). But hey, before you, the reader, generalize me as a cheapskate, let me tell you that I did offer to pay, but was promptly turned down. Thanks again Roy for that free jug of beer. I owe him one when we go for reservist next week. The beer didn't take long to finish. A short walk across the road saw us near Craig road for some zhi char supper. Wenjun and I shared a plate of horfun because all of us were freaking starving after flooding our bloodstream with alcohol. The other guys ate stuff too, can't remember what they ordered though. Not the best tasting, but hey, once you've eaten army combat ration duck rice, anything else in the world is edible, well almost (within reasonable limits that is). Supper was free too. Credits to Roy's friend (I forgot his name, >_< ).

Stomachs filled, we headed to our next and final destination (at least for me). St James powerstation. Wenjun and Roy said they have not been there before so I figured that they'd be interested to go in to take a look. We ended up at Dragonfly, the popular mando pop bar/club/lounge/live performance area thingy where the legendary William Scorpion performs. My legendary godsis, Kloie, was there too. Thanks to Roro for signing me in to Dragonfly, else I'd have to pay for the cover charge there. Free sips of Kilkenny too for losing to her in Five-Ten. No I did not intentionally lose, I really suck at that game.

There you go. That was my Saturday night.
Roy and Wenjun went off to Golden Mile Complex to hang out at a Thai bar at about 1am I think. I didn't join them for this. Stayed till 3 at DF and went home to snooze.

Expenses all in all: $17.70 for cab home ONLY. ^_^

There shall be no recognition! - v2.0

2009-07-17T16:40:00.003+08:00

And again!
She's probably the only mother who does not think that her son is smart and openly says it infront of him.

For some reason, my mum got a call on her mobile for my dad's work thingy. I don't know why or how. Maybe my dad mistakenly gave it to them?
Well whatever.

My mum was pissed off that she got that call. For what reason, I don't know. She wouldn't admit for sure, but you could tell from her facial expression, body language and the tone when she said "Tell them next time don't call this number, this is my wife's number. Why did the stupid person call this?". My, such angst, such Ooomph!

So I casually remarked "Welcome to the world of stupid people."
Lighting lacerated across the dark gloomy sky and thunder clashed. She yelled "You think you're very smart then ?!". Maybe she forgot that I'm her son and if she does not think I am (I'm not self proclaiming/bragging that I am fyi.), then who is "smart" in her eyes? Oh maybe Einstein, Dalton, Darwin, Nikola Tesla, Edison...

This incident kind of reinforced the previous post which I was ranting about me not being recognised for my efforts in whatever I do, and she (my mum) thinking she is always right and superior. Which kind of makes me wonder about the actual reason contributing to why my sister has decided to move out for good. Maybe she decided not to put up with the non-recognition. Well, at least I can say I lasted longer than her. Not that I'm putting it in a competition sense or sounding proud of it.

By the way, I read that cod fish contains the highest amount of protein from Men's Health Magazine. I also asked my mum to buy some cod fish for me from the wet market if she does happen to see them and she says "The fish I buy you don't eat, you eat this kind of fish". Of course by her "this kind of fish" she means to say that it is "lousy fish" (i.e low quality, taste shitty and all things bad about it). Why can't she just buy it for her son (I'm beginning to doubt my kin status hence the italics) who just wants to eat it?

This is why I love my room. I've mentioned to a few friends before that my bedroom door seems to act as a separation between heaven and hell. When I'm in my own room, I'm at peace with the world. When I'm outside of my room, I expose myself to potential columns of flame and wrath, waiting to conflagate me. I shuttle between two worlds; my bedroom and the outside world which we all know of, the other parts of the house which I traverse through is simply a dangerous route.

Can't keep my hands out of the cookie dough

2009-07-14T21:35:00.007+08:00

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I made cookies this morning for Yanley's birthday.
Not much to talk about, but lots of pictures to see though. Anyway it was my first attempt at making cookies since Chinese New Year and I agree that this time round, I did a lousier job on the soft cookies (not lao hong) than previously. Maybe because I accidentally added too much milk.

Oh well, here comes the eye candy: (May take awhile to load)

Simple beginnings of flour and baking powder

Creaming the butter, egg and sugar

Add the flour

Looks like soft-serve ice cream

Raw cookie #1

Raw cookies #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 and a test piece

The finished product. I ate the test piece and cookie #5

Finished product in a box

Another serving of unshaped cookies

There shall be no recognition!

2009-07-13T19:45:00.003+08:00

Anastasia Liew, 43, from a simple HDB Kitchen to a chain of Bengawan Solo stores island-wide. As the founder of one of Singapore's most heartland and popular bakeries, I take my hats off to her for being able to make it in such a small country. I admit, the kueh lapis from Bengawan Solo is uber and for a number of years I did have a ball of a time savouring them layer by layer. Truly a success story that one must read about; available in today's Straits Times (13th July 2009), Home section.

Of course the topic of today's blog is not directly about Ms Liew or kueh lapis, but rather, Ms Liew's story has somewhat a slight co-relation to what I am about to write (rant) about today.

It was just after dinner, like maybe 6.30pm. Usually I'm a faster eater so I chow down my food quickly, and go off to brush my teeth. After I come out, I go past the dining table where my mum was still eating and decided to take a peek at the Straits Times; and there it was Ms Liew's story.
I casually made a remark to my mum saying "Who knows I might one day become like her too!"

Lo and Behold, she fires off and says "I asked you to go learn all these cooking things, you don't want!". FYI, I was not asked by her to attend cooking classes. The only one which I went for was a 3 day sushi making class 2 years ago which she refuses to even to attempt to make AFTER we 'graduated' from it. Much was spoken about 'how WE should make sushi for our relatives to try during Chinese New Year', but looks like it went all NATO (No Action, Talk Only).

So I made a rebuttal, saying that everytime I try to cook something or bake something she'll say that I mess up the kitchen and make it sound like I do not know how to clean up after myself. Well, time and again I have actually proven to her that I CAN clean up the mess (wash the dishes, dry them, put them back in their original places) and even mop the floor if I made the floor greasy. But well, looks like 10 goods don't override one bad. Then she rebutts by saying that I can't even be bothered (yes she said 'be bothered') to clean up a simple fork after using it to stir boiling chickpeas. Apparently, there was no fork, because I did wash it up.
While, yes I admit that I did have my lazy past, she apparently cannot seem to move on from that mental fixation of me being a lazy, incompetent asshole in the kitchen.

Because of that, my cookings gain no recognition from her. She shows me pictures of my cousins' cookings (because they lived overseas before so they need to cook themselves) and even brings back this and that aunty's recipes to try. But when I make cookies or even try to cook something, she never shares with the relatives. Is she not proud of what her own kid can do? Or am I adopted?

Speaking of cookies, I have made cookies for this year's Chinese New Year. I improvised on a recipe which she provided me with and made them soft chewy cookies. But as you would expect after reading the above, she goes to say that they're lao hong (softened due to exposure to air). I have explained to her that they are INTENTIONALLY made soft, and all she says is "You go and anyhow change the recipe and anyhow make." I've heard that even the crudest, least educated mums praise their children for doing something that they can be proud of, or at least putting in their best effort. She reminds me of Soundwave from G1 Transformers where he would go "Soundwave superior, (so and so) inferior!".

"Mummy superior, Arnold inferior!" *with the muffled, electronic voice*

For the past 26 years, I haven't heard a single "good" or "well done" before from her.
Call me a glutton for recognition, but I so hope the day would come when I make it big, I'll come back and smear the fame all over her face like a cream cake. Sorry no pictures for today's blog; its dry reading I know.

Tomorrow, bear shaped chocolate chip cookies for Yanley.

So much trouble just for...

2009-07-08T20:18:00.002+08:00

You need:
1 Salmon fillet
1 US Russet potato
1 teacup of low fat milk
1 tablespoon of olive oil
3 Whole white button mushrooms
3/4 chunk of Jap curry cube
1/4 lettuce

You do:
Season the salmon overnight with salt and blackpepper, leave it in the chiller portion of the fridge.

Boil potato until skin comes off easily, mash it up while mixing with olive oil. Set aside.

Shred lettuce and spread them around on the plate.

Place mashed potato into a bowl shape on top of the lettuce, creating a "crater" in the middle to contain the jap curry and mushrooms.

Pour milk into a small saucepan and let it heat up, break the curry cube into tiny chunks and let them mix well with the milk. Use a low flame to prevent milk from boiling. Slice up mushrooms and throw them into the mixture.Let the curry coat the mushrooms fully while constantly stirring the mixture. Simmer for 10mins and remove from heat. Pour mixture into the crater in the mashpotato

Using a pair of tongs, gently pick up salmon fillet with it and hold it over naked flame of the stove. You can use a handheld gasburner too if you own one. Let the flame "lick" the salmon along the outside, cooking it, leaving the inside raw.
Slice up and place on top of the mashpotato/curry.

Serve! :D

Why so sway? - Adventures of Bwangcycle.

2009-07-07T14:59:00.002+08:00

So there I am wanting to pay off my credit card bills and thinking of going for a simple workout - I did; which resulted in quite a misadventure.

My CitiBank credit card bill payment is due on the 22nd of every month. So every week I try to clear off some of the outstanding amounts by depositing cash directly into the CitiBank atms. I don't use the AXS machines because they take like two or three days for the transaction to be processed, require payment to be made through NETS which sees me having to join the super long queue for the cash depositing machine outside DBS/POSB Banks. The CitiBank atms clear the payment immediately (well almost, give or take an hour or so).

But I digress. Back to topic. The closest place I could pay off my CitiBank bills was at AMK Hub which has the atms which I spoke of. Deciding to cycle there, I felt that it would be good if I could make use of the opportunity to incorporate a light cardio workout to compliment my weights pushing in the gym. Well off on my bwangcycle I go.

Yes bwangcycle. Thats the name I give to my 10+ year old mountain bike. 3/4 through the maybe 5 or 7km journey to AMK Hub, my rear tyre started deflating itself. Excellente. Thankfully AMK was just around the corner when that happened. I scoured part of the AMK central shophouses for a bike shop, hoping I could borrow an airpump. How nice, no bike shop.

Agitated and sweaty, I parked the piece of scrap metal outside AMK Hub and chained it to a fence and proceeded in to pay off my credit card bills. And then I walked back home, pushing my uber bwangcycle.

Well, come to think about it, at least I got my stuff done, and I did get my cardio workout too. And if this incident had not happened, I don't think I would've anything to blog about. I came actually thought of the draft of this post while walking home instead of mentally grumbling to myself. Optimistic aren't I?

Cheerios to no mobilization and mid Saturday afternoon beer!

2009-07-04T23:55:00.006+08:00

What can I say? WOOT.
I'm on standby for the army this week and I did not get called up by them, although for the past few days I kept having this bad feeling they were going to.

Anyway I took the opportunity to catch up with an old friend Jeremy today over a Hoegaarden at Cuppage. $10 per pint. Yay for happy hours!

After that we went on to Botak Jones for dinner. What I told him; BJ albeit slightly more expensive than normal hawker stall prices, is definitely worth the amount you pay. And yes, I believe we can all agree on that from what we see in the pictures.

I also managed to spend some of my free $200 given by the government on some necessities. Well, I wouldn't call them necessities but well... My loot; Levis underwear and socks. I don't think anybody wants pictures of those tho. This particular scenario reminded me of what one of my friend said about using government money to buy unnecessary stuff when it is supposed to help us tide through the economic downturn;

"The government gives you money because you work for them (or due to economic downturn in this case), then you stupidly take the money to go buy booze when the alcohol tax is so high. Aren't you taking the money they give you to give back to them?"

But well, honestly, from the looks of the crowd in Orchard Road today, nobody can fault you for asking "What economic crisis?" By the way, the Louis Voutton boutique outside ION Orchard looks chichi, then again it is supposed to be chichi.

Salmon Tataki Part Deux

2009-07-02T21:27:00.003+08:00

Second attempt at making salmon tataki today.
It went much better as I kind of knew what to expect already.
And this time round I didn't use a pan to tataki it, just a naked flame.

The fish held together nicely as I was cutting it up and melted into a smooth cream-like texture upon entering the mouth.

Sadly tho, my other ingredients (the pasta, mushrooms and lettuce) weren't as well flavoured as the salmon. Oh wells. There's always a third try!

From a dollop of

befuddled blitz

2009-07-02T00:18:00.002+08:00

So I'm sure most of us have a Facebook account and have a few friends who keep playing Bejeweled Blitz. I too have tried my hand at this game and I must say I really suck at it.

I wonder how is it even possible for someone to achieve 250,000 points in 1minute when I'm having difficulty sometimes even making 25,000 ? One of my friends has actually told me that I need to get the hang of being fast, yet even with that done, my highest score to date is 53,000.

I just don't get it. It is seemingly possible, yet seemingly impossible to attain such a score within a short time frame of one minute; unless of course one enlists the help of the elite Firefox Bejeweled Blitz browser script where he can attain a score of 2 billion. *cough* *cough* You know who you are if you're reading this =P

Anyway tomorrow, I shall make a second attempt at salmon tataki. Keep checking back for updates and pictures for tomorrow's misadventures.

salmon tataki

2009-06-30T20:23:00.006+08:00

From Wikipedia:

Tataki (Japanese: "pounded" or "hit into pieces"),^[1] also called tosa-mi,^[1] is a manner of preparing fish or meat in Japanese cuisine. The meat or fish is seared very briefly over a hot flame or pan, briefly marinated in vinegar, sliced thinly and seasoned with ginger (which is ground or pounded into a paste, hence the name).^[1]

The method originated in the Tosa Province, now part of Kōchi Prefecture. Lore has it that it was developed by Sakamoto Ryōma, a 19th century rebel samurai, who picked up the European technique of grilling meat from the foreigners resident in Nagasaki.^[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tataki

From a dollop

Tonight was my first ever attempt at making salmon tataki.
Not bad for a first timer although I did encounter difficulties during the searing of the fish; especially when it got stuck to the pan I started to panic, afraid that it would just break into pieces.

Thankfully the fillet held together.
So that was tonight's dinner.
Salmon Tataki with baked mash potatoes and shredded lettuce with vinaigrette.

Special thanks to Junyang for giving me tips on how to do it!

the return

2009-06-29T21:59:00.003+08:00

So here I am returning to the blogging scene.
Why? I don't know. Just felt bored on a Monday afternoon. Oh the joys of being a commitment-less student isn't it?

Anyhow, this blog's theme would be about almost anything in general. But I don't know if I can be bothered to be blogging about everything and anything in general, let's see how things go. I could keep it to about food and entertainment and my own misadventures with these.
So exciting...

Upon reading through what I just typed above, I realized that my text has a hell of a pathetic structure. Sentences seem to be put to an abrupt stop, then a whole new chunk just starts right after it. Yes yes, Mass Comm student yada yada. I probably spent more time in the kitchen than the classroom, shamelessly trying to make my lunch look and taste like something you'd find from Whitebait & Kale.

In case you're wondering why this blog is called 'a dollop', it is basically sharing a dollop of my life. Yes a dollop, you know, like when you scoop up sourcream with a spoon and splat it on your plate.

Keep checking back for more updates if you're not bored already.

From a dollop of